Status quo
by eternalbloodrelative
Summary: Skeeter publishes an article about Hermione Granger's latest romantic dates. Draco is not happy.
1. The irritating fingers of jealousy

**Status quo**

**Notes: **English is not my primary language. I'm self-taught (by reading fanfics). So please have that in mind! If you spot any errors that I couldn't identify during the proofreading, please let me know.

This will be a four chapter story, most of which I had already written. I will take the time to proofread it several times, however, to avoid as many mistakes I can and to try to learn better how to write in good English.

Thank you for reading!

* * *

**Chapter 1: The irritating fingers of jealousy**

"Again? That girl has no principles."

The knife on Draco Malfoy's fingers continued putting jam on the toast, the scraping sound filling the blanks between the newspaper's noise on his mother's hands. The singing of the little birds outside the open window were interrupted by the crunching bites, the toast disappearing little by little into inexistence.

He knew his mother was waiting for his question, the hoped curiosity at her cryptic words. He started preparing another one of the toasts that the Houses elves had made. The routine Saturday and Sunday breakfast were always like this: he would greet her with a short 'mother' and she would smile at him, calling the elves to bring the food. Narcissa would wear an elegant gown, as if this was some kind of social gathering and not just the visit from her only son. As her bracelets jingled together, she would make light conversation, which would go from questions about his job to the latest and juiciest social rumors. He would try to answer each question patiently, in a effort to integrate her in to his new life -not as traditional as his parents had envisioned. Against the stern opinion of Lucius (who was the only changing variable in the reunions, choosing to appear or hide away with "work" in the office), Draco had purchased a flat and he was working for the Ministry. Not that his opinion really mattered by now: he had been able to rejoin society as his father inhabited the Manor as a haunting ghost, after on behalf of Narcissa's help in the Final Battle, house arrest had been the decision for the verdict.

"Don't you work with her, dear?"

Draco took the cup in front of him and only once the liquid was pouring down his throat and the dancing steam was moistening his nose, he looked at his mother.

Narcissa sighed in exasperation at his slowness and indifference at the social happenings. The boy had never been interested by them and it was time he started paying attention. A Malfoy had to know his enemies; what better way than to be in the loop of the rumors and news?

"Who, mother?" He spoke after depositing the cup back on its plate with a loud clink.

She smiled and replied, "the muggleborn, Granger, I believe."

His fingers twitched at that name and ceased from any action. Draco despised every conversation in which any of the Golden Trio's names were mentioned; even more when it was hers. It had been three weeks since the last time his father, sitting straight as a rule at the head of the table chair, had paused between bites to ask about his "mud-muggleborn" co-worker. He had clenched his jaw, drank the remaining wine in his glass and tried to abort the conversation. He neither wanted to praise Granger, nor reassure his father's prejudiced and fascist beliefs.

"What about her?"

The page of the article in question was now open before his face. "It´s the fourth man she has dated in the last month." Draco saw the title, the words along the same line as what his mother had just said.

His eyes moved to the moving pictures of Granger in different surroundings and with different men. In one she was hugging Potter and his mind moved rapidly to Potter's wife: she would not be happy with the writer's insinuation. He quickly examined the other four photos. His fingers twitched, wanting to touch the paper and bring the images closer to his inspection, but his face would betrayed him. It couldn´t even be insinuated that he gave a damn about the muggleborn girl. Woman, he corrected himself.

Moving his stare away from the offending but hungry paper, he prepared another toast, looking at his mother. "I wouldn't know," but he did want to know. "I only work with her. We don't talk about personal issues."

"Oh, Draco!" Narcissa sighed disappointed. "You know the importance of knowing this type of things." More like: I like knowing this type of things, he thought, scoffing internally. "Gather the information and owl me."

"Mother, I will not do that."

She reduced the paper into a rectangle, sighing again and pursing her lips in a pouting gesture. After taking a sip of her tea, she straightened herself as an idea hit her. "I will owl Skeeter. She will tell me everything."

The wizard knew better than to try to dissuade her. And anyway, he would make her share the details. Not the dirty ones, no. Not only because he didn't want to hear that kind of words on his mother's mouth, but because he didn't want to know that kind of thing of Granger. He wasn't that much of a masochist.

Later, after they had finished breakfast and waited for his father to appear -who had not-, he went to his flat. After a shower and lunch with Blaise, he saw the Prophet being sold in a corner at Diagon Alley. He hesitated for a moment, but a little and annoying part of him wanted to satiate the curiosity, like a hand inching to put pressure over the injured toe.

He managed to not open it until night, when lying on the bed he didn´t have anything else to entertain him away from the topic. Draco tried to distract himself by looking first at the other columns and sections, as if someone, God maybe, was watching over him, judging his actions. He bit the inside of his mouth once he reached the page, well, the three pages article with the new cleaning spells book's advertisement on the fourth. This was clearly intended for women.

He felt almost like a spy looking at the pictures, an uncomfortable voyeur who at the same time wants and doesn´t want to look. Draco read the words first, as if reading words about her was more acceptable than looking at pictures that she clearly didn´t know that were taken. Soon enough, because of the hungriness of the devil inside him and the empty, stupid words that Skeeter had written, his eyes went again to her face.

Beside the title, she and Potter were still hugging from beginning to end. The insinuation was clear: there were not four men, but five. The article also named Krum and Weasley, taking up the number to seven and proclaiming her as the promiscuity impersonated.

In two of the next pictures she was wearing that enormous grey coat that she loved (not that they had talked about it, but she would use it at least three times a week), walking with one bearded man that he didn´t know in the first and with Jerry, Jeffrey or John (something with J) from the Department of Magical Games and Sports in the second. 'What was she even doing with him?' he wondered. That man was a moron. She really had something for sportsmen, or so the article proclaimed.

Rita must be mistaken, Draco thought. Who would go to not even one date, but two with that awful dead sheep on her shoulders? Granger. And she would tell them that it wasn't a sheep, thank you very much, but recycled yarn from the bloody end of the world. And even if in two of the photos they were only walking down the street, they were standing too close to each other. Fuck. At least she was looking at the ground as her hands moved in the traditional Granger-explication-mood, oblivious to the stares and attentions -or lack of attention- of others.

There was the rustle of paper as his hands gripped harder the pages. In the others two she was in a restaurant. Again her hands were moving, clearly dominating the conversation like she always did. Draco imagined that her mouth was moving around the words "elves", "freedom", "injustice" and so on. Or maybe making a discourse about why she chose to eat salad over the corpse of an sentient animal. He felt a bit of relief at that. Who would bother with someone so opinionated?

However, in the two dinner dates, judging by the bit of naked leg under the table, she was wearing a dress and even jewelry. Granger never wore that, not even for Ministry Galas, preferring to shock purebloods with muggle suits and jumpsuits. He felt something drop at his stomach by the image of her putting on a feminine look for other men.

At least she was not a lesbian, right?

Draco threw the paper beside the bed, wanting to demolish the little nagging sensation of anxiety and almost sadness inside. Why did he even care? He had made his peace with the fact that he had had a thing for her, that he still _had_ one, and that he would never act on it. The scales of the con side were tremendously heavier than the pro one. Besides, why would she give him the time of the day?, he thought. It was already weird that they had come to have a peaceful work relationship. And really, he had a line of more beautiful and sane women available.

He closed his eyes, the images of her still printed into his eyelids. He opened them when another question came. How had the dates ended? Had she kissed them? Had she let them do something else? Maybe let them touch her, opened her legs or put her mouth around them? She was as much as a prude nun as a weird woman, with her muggle and leftist notions.

Her _atopy_ had always been the source of his interest; now it only tortured him with the endless possibilities.

He took the pillow and pushed it against his head in an effort to suffocate the troubling thoughts that haunted his mind.

* * *

Granger appeared on his visual plane in the middle of the morning. The witch was wearing again that enormous coat that seemed to try to swallow her, as she sat down in front of him at the big table where the weekly meeting was about to start. A nod was what she gave him as a greeting, taking a little notebook and a pen out of her bag.

"Busy weekend?" He asked with what he hoped was an indifferent tone, the long quill rolling on his fingers in longing for the muggle tool. He had taken a like to it, thanks to her, but refused to use it in public.

She looked briefly at him, narrowing her eyes in confusion. He never asked about her life outside work context. The woman clearly didn't know if to took it as an improvement or as a veiled insult. "As a matter of fact, yes," she said and he bit the flesh inside his mouth, "I added some notes to the project draft." Her eyes moved to the person taking the seat on her side before settling on him again. "I can pass by your office after lunch and we can discuss it tomorrow."

"Why? Do you have plans?"

His tone came hard and sharp. Hermione narrowed even more her vision, trying to decipher if he was trying to tell her something or if it was really honest interest in her life. "Today it's Albus's birthday, so yes." She put her elbows on the table, moving her body forward, as if the proximity would give her the key to read between the lines. "Are you-"

At the entry of their boss and Draco's face moving away from her, she interrupted herself, sending the blond a suspicious look before starting to take notes. The heavy presence of eyes over her came and went, and so she was aware that the Slytherin was in fact not ok.

* * *

He evaded her for the rest of the day. Once the meeting had ended, he engaged Lisa into conversation, or more like flirtation judging by their body's language. In an obscure way Hermione could feel that this show before her, even if it wasn't an unusual action, it was a premeditated one. There was something in the erect spine of the blond directed at her that could only be psychoanalyzed as evasion and negation. The witch ceased from any type of action for a full minute, searching inside her brain what had happened last week to merit this change of attitude. Nothing came to mind, except that she hadn't returned the last book he had lent her. Although he had said to take her time. Could it really be that?

Well, he was a moody, bipolar serpent.

And so after lunch -or better say shopping for a gift and purchasing a banana on the way back- she passed by his office. The witch didn't knock just because the door was already open, but because she knew he hated when someone came in without announcing themselves. The wizard gave her his best arrogant posture, head tilted back in a way that even sitting down he seemed to loom over her. In other times it would have been menacing, this days it had become mundane thanks to its daily dose. Somehow it seemed colder now.

Normally she would have already sat down, knowing it irked him. Sensing the change of air around him, Hermione hesitated, caressing the book and documents in her hands in a nervous act. When his eyes landed on the movement, she stopped, suddenly aware of it. He didn't make any mocking comment as would have been normal, only directed his eyes at hers, arching a eyebrow when a minute passed by in silence.

Hermione cleared her throat in an effort to hide the embarrassment she felt at her immobilized pause. "Here it's the draft," she declared, putting the papers in the desk in front of him, "and the book."

He still didn't say anything nor move his eyes away, even with the knowledge that she hadn't finished reading it. Hermione had a sudden violent desire to gouge his orbs out. The witch held herself back. If he wanted to behave like a bloody idiot, so be it.

She left without any other word, tasting the taste of regression in her mouth.

* * *

"Have you read it?"

Those were the second words she said to him on Wednesday. Earlier Hermione had passed him by and greeted him with a little "hi". Just like the day before he hadn't answered, not even looked at her, so it was obvious that whatever had happened still remained effective. And it still was, even if now he did rise his eyes to her figure on his office's doorway.

"No."

"Wha- Why?" The muggleborn took some steps into the room, confusion written on her face. He was as workaholic as her. "I understand you were busy yester-"

Malfoy reclined back into the chair and moved a hand on top of his desk as if showing a magic trick, cutting her off. "Do you suffer visual impairment?"

"You couldn't muster just one hour?"

"I'm busy, Granger," he said, returning to his work, showing her just how busy he was that he couldn't even waste three minutes to talk to her. "I'll see tomorrow if I can." He didn't tell her that for the next day he had several meetings and so would be unable to do it.

On his peripheral vision he could see her mouth almost closing around words, probably insults and invitations to go to hell. No sound came; she only closed her fits, imagining them closed around his neck, and left, not before slamming his door.

As soon as the invader was out, the pen on his hand stopped. Not that he didn't have work, in fact he was pretty busy preparing for... next month report. Draco was completely aware of how childish he was behaving, but the need to punish her in some way was heavier than his moral conscience.

* * *

The next day he arrived extremely early with the intention of avoiding encountering her before the meetings of the day. Taking the pertinent documents, he left his coat on the chair imagining her seeing it and thinking that he would come back in a few minutes. Hermione would have to go back to his office several times before searching for an agenda or finding someone who knew where he was. On that note, he arranged the desk as if being in the middle of something: documents, papers half written, a quill and a opened bottle of ink. Malfoy made sure to not remind anyone where he was going and left, letting the lights spelled on and the door closed. In other context he would had been smirking by now, laughing at the image of a very pissed off Granger. And that case would had been ten million times more mature than this. It didn't matter. It felt right in some sense and it gave him back some tiny piece of control.

* * *

Despite feeling the deep coldness on his bones as the last meeting was decided to be held in a little coffee shop across the street, he didn't cast a warming charm. His companion had asked where his coat was, at what he had responded that he liked the cold and not that his coat was on a very important mission of driving Granger mad. Had she already noticed that he was not coming back? Had she turned upside down his little office with hopes of finding clues? Maybe she had taken residence in there, fed up with coming and going from hers office to his.

On that note he didn´t go back, even when he remembered that the wedding magazines his mother had given him for Pansy were in the top drawer of his desk. The wizard was meeting his friend that very night, precisely to gave them to her. Well, he would owl them tomorrow.

Even before the appetizers touched the table, Pansy had already cursed him to hell for his incompetence and lack of empathy for a woman who was planning the biggest event of a respectful wizardry society.

* * *

The handle rattled and the door opened, letting him find Granger sitting on his chair with her head resting on the desk. She did take residence on his office after all.

"Did you sleep here?" The question was impregnated with incredulity.

Her head went up in alarm. The witch tamps her hair down with her fingers, as if the beast could be tamed with that simple movement. "No, I was just thinking."

Malfoy approached the desk, taking the lands to their rightful king by putting his things on it. He noticed that the bottle of ink was now closed and the papers neat in a pile. "Of what?" He asked, taking off his other coat, which would soon join the other one on the back of the chair. "Of elves ruling the world?"

Hermione fulminated him with her stare. "I came early so you couldn't escape like the sneaky serpent that you are."

He smirked mockingly at her, showing his palms up in an innocent gesture. "You caught me."

"Don't be daft," she said, adjusting the papers and not moving away from his throne. She looked at him in the eyes and declared in an almost insecure tone, "You are avoiding me."

Malfoy didn't take his eyes away from hers, trying to invoke the ancient sophists' powers of persuasion. On his peripheral vision he paid attention to her fidgeting fingers dancing around the dead trees in evident nervousness. "I had been busy."

"If you don't want to tell me, it's ok. But we have to summit the project on Monday," her hands left the papers and moved to the quill, putting it parallel to its companions, "and even if they extend the deadline you know they always do it on the final day. We can't take chances with this!"

"Calm down, Granger." He took the quill back, "and stop moving everything." Hermione sats back with her hands on her sides, waiting. "We will finish it today. But I can't now-"

"You arrog-"

"I have another mee-"

"... aggravating-"

As Hermione stood up to better direct her angry words, he took advantage to take yesterday's coat and hanged it on the rack with today's one. "How violent you wake up. Do you bite off your companions' heads every morning?" Although the bitterness was pretty clear, she was occupied cursing him to notice it.

"... pig. I wasn't sleeping!"

"Behave yourself, I'm not a pig," _like the ones you seem to date. _Well, maybe she liked farm animals. It might be part of her plan of animal's liberation from all sort of chains and prisons. Was she then into bestiality? "Come back after lunch and we will do it."

"We need more time than that!"

With an invisible smirk he said, "then we will work late." He sat down on the now free chair, after she had chased him around the room with her fervent words, and raised an eyebrow at her. "Or do you have plans?"

Hermione didn't respond, only stopped yelling at him; although the little calculating frown on her face insinuated the answer. Fuck whoever it was, he hoped with all his heart that the man would encounter a violent bludger into the stomach, or bump into a hag that eats him, or maybe just cook a juicy piece of meat and face her righteous ire.

Draco decided right there that this project was going to be the most difficult and longest document they had ever wrote. He would occupy all her Friday night. "Do you promise you won't disappear?"

"Let me work." Her mouth opened, but he interrupted her again. "Granger, come back later."

The door closed after her. Recalling on his mind the slowest restaurants available around the Ministry, he decided to combine it with Pansy so he could give her the magazines. Two birds with one stone. Well, three, if one counted impeding Granger from having time to date.

* * *

Needless was to said that Malfoy returned with a full stomach around three on the afternoon and encountered the same image of the morning. Only this time the witch was not sleeping (or "thinking"), but working on his desk. She welcomed him with a furious stare that summarized everything that had been going on her mind the last few hours.

No word was exchanged until he put his coat on the rack and conjured a chair to sit down. Hermione quickly put the documents in front of him and asked if he was ready to start or if he had another plan prepared. A sneer was the answer, as the wizard reclined against the back's chair and rolled up his sleeves in preparation for a long afternoon and night of work. Draco would never do that with other people. It had been maybe two months into working together in the hot temperatures of summer when she had noticed that, even if he was red in the face from the heat, he would never show that part of skin. Then, in a nonchalant voice -that he had always suspect premeditated-, she had said to him that she wasn't bothered by the fading, grey mark and so didn't have to hide it for her. The Slytherin had blinked, frozen on the spot. The next time they were working together he had rolled up his sleeves and she had tried to hide a little smile.

She didn't smile now. "Can we start?" There was an edge on her tone, the seconds wasted on settling himself an affront to work ethics.

With the slowness of a snail, he took an imaginary lint and smoothed down the fabric of his trousers. "Whenever you want."

Inhaling air from her nose in an attempt to calm the increasing waters inside of her, she spoke. "I modified the order of the information and rephrased some of the paragraphs. If you already read the first draft we can decide-"

"I didn´t read it."

"Malfoy!" The quill he had left on the desk snapped under her grip. "I don't know what your problem has been this week, but you can't let it affect our work."

"I had been busy, Granger."

"You didn't have time in your three hours lunch?" The man shook his head in response, knowing that it would infuriate her more. "You are worse than Ron." She put a palm up as to stop the necessary effect of her words and sighed, taking her head into her hands and making the beast three times worse. "Ok, it's three and half. With good luck we can finish by seven."

Oh, no, we won't, he thought staring at her with his jaw clenched shut. Draco wanted to tell her that she won't slut herself out on his watch. But better keep violence away.

* * *

Her wish didn't become true. For the last hour her eyes had gone to the antique wooden clock's little hands, making him damn the day he had decided to put it up his wall. Each time her stare went up there, he bit the inside of his mouth, wanting to curse her for her lack of lady's education.

By ten to seven, resignation had taken hold of her. A loud sigh left her mouth as she reclined back into the chair. And so, fearing that maybe this new serial-dating Granger would throw the work by the window in pursuit of a certain part of the masculine anatomy he said: "The office is going to close. Where do you want to go?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, making him almost fear that she knew exactly what he was doing. "I need to feed Crookshanks so, if you don't mind, my place," she said, standing up and piling up the documents. "Or you can wait for me-"

"Ok. Your place," he interrupted her, not wanting to leave her alone to change her mind. He took the papers from her hands and set everything in order before taking the two coats, one on his hands and the other on his body. She left to recollect her things in her own office, as he waited at the end of the corridor. After five minutes of her not emerging from the room, he approached and caught her writing a little note, which disappeared into her pocket as soon as the witch saw him. He only raised his eyebrows at her and she promptly hurried up.

When they entered the elevator, she pressed the button of another one of the levels. He didn´t ask anything: he knew that was where the Ministry's owls were. Draco could only wait for her, cursing the man she was owling, her for giving a damn about whoever it was and himself for feeling anger so deep at the knowledge that she clearly had been thinking about whatever date she had planned for that night. Minutes later, as the elevator returned to its way down, he stared at her, imagining the ways he could make her unable to date anyone else. Maybe he could terrify her stupid pretenders. Maybe he could explain to her the good customs and the way real ladies should behave. Or maybe he could treat her as she seems to like, pushing her against the wall, taking her and marking her like an animal would to its mate.

As she gave him a confused look, he could feel his fingers itching to grip her by the hair and tug her head back. He would like to loom over her, darken her face with his shadow, invade her, and make her say that she was sorry, that it was all on purpose or a big misunderstanding.

Fuck her, she turned him into a brute. Civilization out the window.

Malfoy felt almost ashamed of the kind of thoughts that her nearness always inspired. He was sure that if she ever found out, she would cut his balls off and make him eat them.

* * *

After the meows died down in consequence of the food's apparition, an owl taped the window. Opening the window, she didn't take the note off until she had found some treats, which the little animal happily accepted. The cat watched it from the floor, as if trying to decide whether the canned food was more delicious than a living, big owl.

Situated on the couch, he observed her read the note then store it into the grey coat's pocket. Nothing on her faces told him anything, no reaction, no smile nor scowl full of hate or love. Hermione turned her attention to him, taking the muggle artifact called phone, and asked. "Do you want Chinese again or something else?"

"Chinese," he replied with a hard tone. She raised her eyebrows at him, but didn't say anything, only put her coat on the garment beside the door. As she spoke on the phone to order the same food they always ate when they had to work on her flat, Draco wanted to go to the offending cloth and take the little paper into his hands, read it and then make it disappear into flames.

And he did just that, once the doorbell rang and she disappeared behind the door.

_Don't worry, dove. We can change the plan. I will owl you in some hours to see if you are free._

_Lawrence_

It was true, then.

Dove? What the fuck? He scoffed in incredulity. Granger didn't resemble a dove in anything, unless it was a possessed and violent dove who have an opinion about everything in life. A dove with a rifle and a little band with different tones of green, as muggle movies showed. And who the fuck was Lawrence? Was he the Auror who had passed by their office the other day? Didn't she fucking hate Aurors, except from Potter, because of their duty to maintain the status quo? What a hypocrite.

The paper danced up as the flames devoured it. The wizard sat down quickly when the sound of her nearing steps was heard, but not before casting an owl repelling spell outside the window. Thank Merlin for the afterwards of the war which had forced him to learn that spell and for Hermione not owning an owl. Only a ugly, overfeed cat, who was now looking at him with accusatory eyes. When she appeared behind the opening and closing door he contemplated cursing her. With words or actual curses, he didn't know. But he remained seated, clenching his fits. He would curse fucking Lawrence.

"Is something burning?" Hermione asked, sniffing at the air trying to find the source of the smell.

"I don't smell anything, Granger." She sent him again that look, half question half dog wanting to flee from the leash and bite his face off. With the intention of divert he moved the things from the coffee table so she could put the dishes, trying to invoke Buda and his imperturbability. It wouldn't do to fight with her and let her free to invite fucking Lawrence to her house, her couch where he was sitting or her bed.

Once they were eating, she her noodles with vegetable and him with cows and chicken corpses' fragments, she cleared her throat. Malfoy took his eyes away from the documents to pose them over her, taking note that she was not reading.

"Malfoy..." she began and paused momentarily, whether to search the words or to brave herself to take the jump. "Has something happened?"

He clenched his jaw in an automatic response, gesture that she caught. "I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do." Hermione cleaned her mouth with one of that paper napkins that had little drawings on it, carrots, apples, tomatoes, potatoes. A weird mixture of fruits and vegetables; irrational as everything muggle was. He didn´t comment, but looked at her as expecting an explication. "Since Monday you have been rude. Well, _rude_," she said, moving her hands, as if the gesture was supposed to clarify what she meant. It didn't.

"Rude?"

"Ruder, you can say." Hermione took the little carton box in her hands, moving the fork within it. She had told Draco the first time they had taken Chinese that she became terribly irritated when people failed to use the little oriental utensils and tried anyway. The food would scatter all around, and 'do you know how difficult it is to take soy sauce out of a beige rug?' She had fought with the Weasel two times before deciding to never eat Chinese with him and to use a fork for her mental sanity.

"Ruder?"

Hermione scoffed in response, putting the box back on the table in a irritated gesture. "More rude, impolite, dry, insulting, violent, crude, bitter, harsh, barbarous-"

"Barbarous?" He asked, frowning at her for the most insulting word.

"I was running out of words," she said. "But you get the idea. So, did something happened?"

He didn't reply instantly. Not because he had to think on what to answer; no, he wouldn't tell her. What for? What could she possible say? Blush like the virgin she clearly wasn't and change to another Department to avoid him? Insult him and hit him because of the unrequited state of his opinion and attraction? And so he finished his glass of water and then spoke, "for the twentieth time, I have been busy all week."

The witch sighed, clearly not believing any of his words but deciding to let the issue sleep. "Ok, if you say so." The little box was again on her hands. "But if you want to talk, you know..."

Draco didn't respond, he only continued eating. She was not waiting for an answer anyway.

For the rest of the night they worked on the project. It could had been ready almost three hours before, but he insisted and insisted on making it larger, better, with more quotes and lengthier consultant bibliography. Hermione didn't protest, au contraire, she was happy that finally he was taking her advice.

On the little breaks they took, they talked about new books, research, little Potters and politics. She didn't seem to remember the existence of the Auror. Only one time she looked at the window, but he quickly engaged her again, saying that he couldn't fathom how Potter could produce the most beautiful babies she had ever seen.


	2. The restless patriarchy

**Note: **English is not my primary language. I'm self-taught (by reading fanfics). So please have that in mind! If you spot any errors that I couldn't identify during the proofreading, please let me know.

Thank you for reading and sorry for the delay!

* * *

**Chapter 2: The restless patriarchy**

When he woke up on his bed after a long night of work, he couldn't help but be content. He caught his lips curving up on the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth and on the shopwindows as he accompanied Pansy to pick up the wedding invitations.

Hopefully Granger would sleep all day or remain on her apartment where no owl could reach her, reading and caressing the double beast that was her hair and her cat.

On Sunday morning, however, the grim shackles came again.

"_Again_?"

His jaw clenched shut without even questioning his mother, hidden behind the open pages of the Prophet. The silver knife on his hand was at risk of becoming two separate parts. Draco desperately wanted to see the pictures and crumble the newspaper into nothingness. But no, he couldn't. He pretended to not be interested, when inside he could only think of swallowing certain woman to stop being a nuisance. Maybe in the deep of his stomach she would cease to bother him.

Once the breakfast was finished, he didn't waste any time nor tried to distract himself or the gods with justifications. The wizard went directly to buy the Prophet and Apparated home, where his eyes caught the words and images before his body could even inhale air.

_MUGGLEBORN WAR HEROINE AND HARRY POTTER'S BEST FRIEND STRIKES AGAIN_

Along with some repeated examples of the lasts men, there were four magical photos of her and Lawrence. It was indeed the Auror, who was smiling at her in two of them, filling her glass in another and whispering something in her ear in the last.

How bloody hypocrite. Weren't Aurors brainless dogs incapables of autonomous thinking? Maybe she didn't want him for his thought's capacity, but for other physicals abilities.

Fuck.

She was wearing a dress. Another one, light this time, maybe cream, white or a light something. The black ink and the triad of black, grey and white didn't let him point out exactly the color. Draco kicked the nearest thing to him, which was an sculpture his mother had gifted him. He shouldn't have only burned the paper, but burned down her wardrobe; he shouldn't have casted a spell to repel owls, but men; he should have cursed her door before leaving, so she wouldn't have been able to leave for nothing but work.

For the rest of the day his mind refused to let the issue alone.

* * *

On Monday he made sure to arrive on the exact moment their boss came in. He didn't want to have more spaces or times to interact with the subject of his lately worries and laments, even if he necessarily had to talk to her. It was, after all, the submission's day. He couldn't avoid it, but he certainly could delay it. Having that in mind, Draco made a tremendous effort into not even posing his eyes on her, not matter how much his face twitched with the need or how he could see from his peripheral vision that the witch was indeed noticing everything.

The course of action was aborted, however, when he suddenly noticed that one of her hands, moving now along with her words, portrayed five gold painted nails. The man stared at them longer than normal, judging by the nails moving in front of him as she snapped her fingers. His eyes moved to her face, startled for a moment, before recomposing himself and leaving the now almost empty room. The weight of her stare followed him all the way to the door.

As his body moved autonomously towards his office, he couldn't stop thinking about her nails. Draco had never seen them painted. Maybe for one Ministry Ball, but never on a working day. Did they have under remains of Lawrence's skin and sweat? Had they torn and grasped his clothes? He didn't know. What he did know was that they were currently twisting and gnawing at his guts. There was a trail of blood and pain behind.

Draco yearned to confront her, to insult her, to make her take away that color, to shake her and make her explain and repent. But he knew that it was not a valid course of action. He would put himself in a vulnerable situation, because why did he even care? And then, what could she possibly answer? It was ludicrous to think she would find herself suddenly in love with him.

Once the door of his office closed behind his back, his eyes moved to the clock. Each tick-toe sounded like the march to hell. He didn't want to see her. Why did he always work with her in projects? This would be the last, he thought. Specially if she was going to keep doing these- things. Why couldn't she be virgin and shy? Or asexual. He had come to terms with the necessity of inaction, but it was just pure cruelty of fate, of her to shove all her actions and fun in his face.

Sitting down and putting his hands onto the table, he invoked all the gods to give him the coldness and nonchalance in order to not put on fire the office with her in it. His pray was not even finished when two little knocks hit the door. Why did she even bother knocking? Didn't she know that he could smell her perfume, distinguish her footsteps from others, and recognize the shape of her shadow?

"Yes?"

Draco didn't look up from the papers. Her shadow fidgeted, an insecure little thing. If his eyes were to fix on it, the limits would start to blur. "The submission date has been extended."

Silence. Rustle of turning pages.

She sighed in exasperation. "Would you like to revise again or should I summit it?"

"Do as you wish."

"Ok, Malfoy. I won't bother you again." Her voice was now the bitter one with a touch of resignation that made his stomach twist with something like guilt. He envisioned the photos of the Prophet and evaded it easily.

* * *

Granger didn't bother him again. Well, not directly. The rage, jealousy and some cousin of sadness still visited him because of her. With this new found emotions he started noticing more things, like how much time she took for lunch (whenever before she would eat a salad on her desk in order to not miss work), the quantity of males that searched her out or the change of earrings and the new presence of sometimes a necklace or a bracelet. The last was the worst. Was she trying to make herself prettier to seduce someone, everyone? On Friday she was even wearing lipstick. After someone in the office made a comment about it, she had returned from the toilet with the face bare as always and annoyed, snapping at every person who crossed her way for the rest of the day. Not at him, no. There had been no need to evade her this last week: she was stirring out of his way like a cockroach encountering light.

On a Tuesday the cockroach's approach paused for over thirty seconds. The elevator doors had opened and he had found her and that bloody McLaggen almost stamping her against the wall in her intent to put distance between their bodies. That man had never learnt about personal space, especially when it came to the female part of the Golden Trio. It was never quite clear if it was a deficiency in attention and self-awareness or if it was made consciously for means of seduction. For that reason the Slytherin thought that Granger had never sent him to hell or hexed his bollocks off: the stupid man seemed to tingle the line of indiscretion, but never trespassed in a one hundred percent evident way.

Draco clenched his jaw at the image and saw the moment her face lighted up at his presence. As he moved in and stood with his back to them, he heard the man whispering something about showing her his new bed and so, yes, it was seduction. Poor seduction. Very blunt, pathetic seduction.

"No, thank you," she said with clear disgust in her voice. The other man didn't seem to catch it; the whispers started again. Draco felt suddenly a hand grasping his elbow, tugging him slightly back. He turned half his body and yes, it was her, of course it was her, but at least now her nails were bare. Taking his elbow as a bloody life jacket, moving closer to him and away from the beast who was now sending violent glares at him. He wanted to shake her off and say something about consequences and reaping what was sow, but one look at her imploring face made him quiet. "Malfoy," a life jacket with a name. "I- Finally I submitted the papers on Tuesday."

"Yes, Granger. That was two weeks ago." And of course he was still bitter and annoyed. Yes, a life jacket indeed. An object, without emotions or feelings or fucking anything, no, Granger? Only to be used whenever one was drowning. Meanwhile, as the latest Prophet had said, she was over man number seven. Would she like to invite him along to her dates to save her in case they didn't go well? Would she like to make him stand next to her bed and hold her hand while she screws too? "What do you think, that I don't do my bloody job? I already checked."

Granger blinked once at his ferocity. Then her face matched his. "I don't know what your bloody problem is, but involution doesn't become you."

The gods seemed to think like her, because in the same moment she finished speaking the doors to their floor opened and she left. Draco scoffed in response and glared hatefully at the other man.

* * *

The next Sunday The Prophet escalated the number to eight. The new man was a former Head of Aurors, old enough to be her father. What the fuck was wrong with her, he asked himself internally as his mother manifested the same concern in a more educated form. The biscuit crumbled into millions pieces under the pressure of his jaw. The photos moved before his eyes: again the dead sheep (thank god for small mercies) around her shoulders as she talked excitedly at the man's warm smile.

"I encountered Rita Skeeter the other day," the blonde lady started after sharing the still shocking news with his son.

"Encountered where?"

Narcissa smirked at his question. People always thought that his smugness and arrogance came from his father, but really he had learnt at a very young age by mimicking his mother's manners. "At The Prophet's offices. I had a sudden urge to make a little donation," she explained, her hands moving in a dismissal gesture, her long, manicured nails shining just like the silver ware. "We talked about the latest news of society, including this girl." His body almost moved forward in anticipation. He controlled it like a good Malfoy. "I don't know what Granger did to Skeeter, but the woman absolutely hates her. Maybe this," she continued, moving the newspaper beside her, "is revenge. We all know that no respectful man would approach her now with honest intentions. But seeing the photos... maybe Skeeter is right and she is a gold digger." Never gold: she wouldn´t even let someone buy her dinner. More like a cock digger. Or rider.

Fuck.

"Has she ever approached you, dear?"

Draco unconsciously fulminated his mother with his eyes.

"I will take that as a no. Take care. I know you like this type of women," she said, the disapproval clear in her words. "You have showed so on every event. You should start thinking about your future. Why don't you talk with Theodore?"

Monogamy and marriage weren't a disease that you could catch by speaking with the already infected. Life would be so easy if it was like that: he would be able to infect Granger and make her reciprocate his infatuation.

Draco drank the rest of his tea in answer and changed the subject to her new techniques to save the dying roses on the garden. He didn't want to think, even less talk, about how he would only be monogamous for one person. One person that didn't give him the time of the day, and who lately practiced sexual liberation like a fucking Azkaban's escapee.

* * *

The next day he arrived just in time again. There was no need to avoid Hermione, however, since she was on a similar mission of completely ignoring him. Draco noticed that her nails were painted with a light pink. He forced himself to look away, focusing with absolute attention on their boss' words and sighing with relief at the near end when the man left, not before asking them to finish arranging the week activities.

Once the authority disappeared through the door, the mood lightened and the jokes began. Draco was in no humor for that -not that he ever was. After half an hour of goings and comings, the division of work was established except for one item.

"Someone should speak with the Aurors."

"Maybe you, Granger?" Andrew asked with a smirk. The tone was playful in the surface, but the glint in the eyes betrayed him. That man had been trying to get into every woman's knickers that crossed his path with a fearsome dedication. Draco didn't know his efficiency rate, but he had witnessed the moment that Don Giovanni had encountered a wall, an offended one, in Hermione. Since then, he constantly made apparent innocent jokes about her which would drive all the office to laugh. Granger always answered either with a raised eyebrow or with complete disregard, brushing off his insults like little, stupid insects.

The witch moved her eyes away from her notepad and suddenly noticing the several grins around the table her eyes narrowed in confusion. Wasn't she aware that her slutiness was being reported every week and being made a casual topic of conversation? "I will talk with Harry."

"Ok, you do that. But don´t forget to work." More sniggers travelled down the table, mostly by the men, which constituted the eighty percent as usual. She seemed put out by the mood, not catching where the jokes was. The witch remained seated, eyes fixed on the stupid man as everyone started leaving.

"Excuse me, Anderson," she said in that bossy tone that she had perfected so many years ago. Draco hid a smirk at her stern use of the family name as he closed the ink bottle and stood up. "I seem to be missing the joke. Do you care to explain?"

Draco looked back, seeing from behind as a moment of doubt seized the caveman's body. His resentment seemed to win after looking around and noticing that only the two of them had remained around the table. "What? You are too busy fucking different men to keep up with the Prophet?"

Wow.

Granger's mouth opened in surprise as she blinked. From fire, passion and never ending words, she had transmuted into a statue, immovable and speechless. As if sensing his thoughts, her eyes moved towards his behind the man. Maybe to petition for the life jacket to enter into action? He didn't, however, for most that he wanted to make the man's face meet the table repeatedly.

"If I knew you were this easy, I would have just show you my cock."

Repeatedly, repeatedly until his brain would come out and paint the wood red. The caveman, future corpse, stood up and turned towards the exit, his smug and victorious face paling at seeing the blond man at the door. Malfoy stabbed him with his stare on the march towards the door. The caveman seemed to crouch into himself when he passed by him, and only after closing the door and thus invisible to the still speechless woman, the Slytherin's hands moved without thinking, grabbing Anderson by the robs and shoving him violently against the wall.

"Speak to her like that again and I will make sure you will never be able to get laid," he spat into the man's face, invoking every ounce of his Malfoy heritage. Draco had never been glad for his Death Eater past (or sort of past), but leaving the man frozen and silent behind him, he had finally found its rightful use.

* * *

Granger didn't show her face for the rest of the day, or at least not in his vicinity. There were, however, several owls coming and going towards her office, so he logically inferred that she was getting up to date with her appearances on the Prophet. There was no need to guess her current emotion: pure rage. He wondered about the cause: was it because it was a breach of her privacy or because it was a misunderstanding? Biting the inside of his mouth, he wished again and again that it was the latter case.

And so Draco awaited for her to come and explain herself, and then they could insult and plot against the caveman. Whenever there was a shadow approaching the space seen by his opened door he felt his insides clenched with hope.

But only Elmira, the old lady that sold coffee, came in.

* * *

"You seem cheerful this morning, son," his mother commented as a whirlpool formed by the spoon's movements on her cup. "Did something good happened?"

Or something bad hadn't happened. As he had already checked on his early supervision of the newspaper, that Sunday there wasn't any article about her, nor photo old or new. Draco felt like he could breathe freely again. Not even the presence of his father, sitting on his side, with a judgmental eyebrow raised, could tarnish this moment of peace.

Maybe the caveman's crude words did have a positive effect. Not that it made him lessen the desire to smash the man's face against his fist.

It was the first Sunday in some time that he didn't have to resort to alcohol or into sleeping long hours in order to alleviate the depressing mood. Suddenly he felt happy, the colors returning to the world, the sounds vibrating louder, the sweets in his cupboard tastier. He felt like celebrating the new found lightness inside his chest.

* * *

The happiness extended to the next day, but met a wall shortly after. First, he felt a jab of something when her eyes flickered to him, but moved instantly away with sadness. Then, he saw her red nails, which promptly changed the nature of the something. Finally, the cherry on top of the cake, he was called to their boss's office to be informed that Granger had asked to be spared from going to the New York conference taking place in two weeks.

Albert continued despite the surprise invading the man's face in front of him. "She told me on Friday. I insisted that she should give it a second thought. She informed me first thing this morning that she doesn't want to go. I told her it isn't negotiable."

"Why?"

"I had hoped you knew." He answered, interpreting correctly his question. "She didn't say. Seeing that you two are the best couple on the team and always fulfill everything in perfection, I can't let her stay."

As soon as he was dismissed, Draco crossed the corridor towards Granger's office. Anderson stepped into his way and told him in a nervous whisper, looking around for eavesdroppers, "Malfoy, I swear on my mother I didn't talk to her again. Lift the-"

Without pause, Draco opened and slammed the door on the caveman's face. He didn't know what the man was talking about and he didn't care. There was only one subject on his mind now, as of lately: Granger, Granger who was not currently inhabiting her own office.

It didn't matter, he though as he moved one of the chairs in front of her desk to face the door. Whether she had gone to the toilet or to the fucking North Pole, he was not moving from the spot until her irritating presence was in front of him to answer his questions.

Because why would she have done that? The conference was the tying vow of everything they had been doing that year so far. She had been over the moon when their proposal had been selected, her face transformed into a wide smile and her eyes twinkling with happiness. Why throw all the work away now? Had maybe one of her dates asked her to stay? Did she stay in order to not mess up her dates schedule? His foot tapped the floor, punctuating each question with nervous violence. The fifth one was interrupted by the opening door.

Hermione froze in the entry for a few milliseconds, before recomposing herself and moving around the desk to sit on her own chair. If it wasn't for the initial inaction Draco would have doubted his very existence. He rearranged the chair into place and sat facing her, his arms folded in front of his chest.

When it was evident that she planned to ignore him, he started speaking.

"Why don't you want to go to New York?"

Her eyes didn't move away from the papers on her desk. Despite her effort in giving a nonchalant aura he could tell she was heavily thinking her next words. "I´m tired."

"And?"

"And pretty much that."

Her hands continued shifting through the pages and he had to bite his tongue in order to not lash out. With irritation bubbling up, he breathed in and out, just like she had taught him one late night of stressed work.

"You were excited about this opportunity, why the change of mind?" Draco asked and watched her hand close around a pen to start moving it along a page, leaving traces here and there. He frowned, trying to discern if she was really writing or just wasting ink for the sake of annoying him. "What happened?" The movement didn't stop after a sharp silence, so he took his wand and casted an accio at the papers, provoking a long line of black ink across several of them. As she gasped at the audacity, he continued, "I´m speaking to you, pay attention to me for one minute at least."

Now she was the one with her arms folded, full of anger, reclining against the back of her chair. "It amazes me how one sided our relationship always is."

Draco's throat moved gulping air in a nervous motion. "What do you mean?"

"This," she indicated with a movement of her hand. "I have been trying to speak with you for the last weeks and you not even look at me." He sighed with relief."And now that you are the one who wants to talk I have to leave everything immediately to hear my precious majesty."

"I take it that you are mad at me."

A snort of disbelief left her mouth as her body leaned towards the desk. "You take it?" There was a sharp edge of fury on her voice. "Don't you think I have ample of reasons?"

"No."

"No?"

"No," he replied again, putting all his vocal cords force in the word, even if he recognized the rhetoric nature of the last question.

A shriek of frustration escaped from her lips. "You have been cold and hot with me for no visible reason. You've been avoiding me and if not, treating me like shit under your shoe. You didn't even defend me last week!"

Life jacket again. He was fucking pinning after her, burning images of men, having trouble sleeping, working, breathing without a word of recrimination, and she was mad that he didn't act as one of her stupid friends would have reacted?

"I thought women didn't need saving."

"Of course not!"

"Then? I didn't know I had to do something," he said with disbelief showing on his face. "What did you expect me to do?"

"To bloody say something!" The exclamation seemed to be thrown out of her throat. "We had been working together for two years now? And you can't say something in my defense?"

"Why would I do that?"

The angry lioness seemed to evaporated at his words as if they were an animal enchanter. It was like seeing a balloon being deflated in slow motion. Now, instead of a dangerous feline, there was a little deer with eyes full of sadness and disappointment. Draco felt heavy, an unforgiving fist twisting his insides, which only made him angrier because _he_ was the one feeling sad and disappointed. She had no claim over that emotions.

"I don't know what's the matter with you lately. I sought you out, I asked you, I figured you needed space, maybe something had happened- with your mother or father or-. Maybe you're sad because Parkinson is getting married. I don't know," she said in a quick succession, ignoring his snort. "It seems I interpreted it wrong." The fist wringing his insides grew harder, as Granger stood up and started moving towards the door. Who would have said that a Gryffindor would be so coward to run away and leave her own space? Not that he was someone to talk, but well. She was going to talk to Albert to convince him this time for all. "You clearly still have a problem with me. I will not bother you again."

At her words he was suddenly immersed in pure, blind anger. How dare she! he thought as he stood up, the chair squeaking against the floor, and approached the entry just as her hand closed around the door handle. "Don't say I _still_ have a problem. I don't _still _have a problem and you fucking know it."

"I know it?" Hermione snarled, turning her head to look at him. "Are you kidding me? It's been more than a month since you are a step away from cutting my head off and now-" Her hands moved away from the metal to dance in angry gestures. "Do you need a psychiatrist? Are you even hearing yourself or the words leave your mouth without processing them?" She scoffed exasperated. "And now you ask me why would you even defend me when that Neanderthal said those things! I don't know what concept you have of friendship, but we don't seem to share it."

"How can I defend you when he's right?" He didn't mean to say it, but the words escaped from between his lips like furious waterfalls. Draco only wanted her to go back to her celibacy or at least to do it in secret, so he didn't have to suffer so much.

She blinked at him as the silence stretched for almost an eternity. "What?"

"Yes. He say more or less that you´re a slut. Aren't you?" Ok, he couldn't stop.

"So you think I am a slut?"

"Well, if it moves like a duck..."

"I'm sorry," she started looking at the sides as if there was something or someone apart from him to clear her confusion. "Didn't you went out the other day with... Linda was it? From the cafeteria?"

"Yes-"

"And before that, weren't you recently bragging about having gone out with two secretaries from the Improper Use of Magic Office?"

"What-"

"And before! Didn't you-"

He raised his voice over hers. "And what does it have to do with this?"

"What does it have to do?" Her hands were moving at her sides, palms up in a clear gesture of disbelief mixed with fury. "You can do it without being called anything and I can't?"

"You are- Granger." He replied stupidly, but it did say a lot. "A woman."

Hermione took some steps towards him, wishing that her proximity could infect him of rationality and logic. "So because I have a vagina I can't go on multiple dates?"

The tale of the lock and the multiple keys would have been pertinent, he thought, and even more peaceful than the actual words that left his mouth next. "You _are_ a slut." Even he could recognized that his voice came out violent and hard. With hope he had been expecting an explication and the reassurance that it was all a big misunderstanding or tricks of reporters and photos. But no. Nothing was ever easy with her.

The heaviness of his words made the air dense as a tunnel formed between their intense stares.

Despite the venom of his voice, Hermione moved closer and responded with more disgust than him. "What does that make you then?" She pressed her palm into his chest, shoving him a step back and following into it. "The number one slut? No, a bloody bachelor. A bitter, vengeful man that can't stand that his frien- his colleague enjoys herself? No, a bloody good man. Fuck you." When she shoved him again he took her hand into his grip. "Men pursue and women are pursued? What are you? Patriarchy 101? Look it up, you stupid arrogant pureblood-dinosaur." Clucking her tongue in a clear gesture of disappointment, she finally added, "I thought you were different than your parents. Evidently I was wrong."

She did know which buttons to push. Malfoy moved instinctually closer to her, stopping one step in front of the space occupied by her infuriating body. He loomed over her, casting darkness on her face and imposing his physical presence as a threat, as a bribe. "Take that back." The tone was icy and the order was as clear as the increasing tension in the room.

Some years ago, on the face of his imposing and masculine presence, she would have swallowed not exactly in fear, but in something very close to it. Now, however, the only acceptable course of action was to take the step he didn't dare, almost trampling over the tips of his shoes, and speak, breath caressing his skin, but words stabbing a million needles. "You are the same."

Boiling waters danced inside of him. They were not the ocean waves, increasing and receding over the rocks. They were tsunamis, threatening to swallow it all: rocks, beaches, cities and jungles. Grabbing her by the arms he pushed her back until they collided with a chair, on which she sat down in order to not fall.

Malfoy leaned over, his face directly above hers, and his voice came as a feral growl as his nails tried to stab her through the yarn of her sweater. He had never damned her style of big and bulky clothes more than now. He wished to hammer his nails into her skin, to give her back something, anything of which she gave him every fucking day.

"Take that back."

She didn't. Force didn't beget duty, only submission, which she had not. Not even a drop. Hell, she surely wasn't even able to spell that word without disgust.

"Take back what you said."

Shaking his hold off, she spat on his face. "You can say what you think of me and I can't share my own opinion?" The witch leaned up, an inch away from his face and sneered. "You may think me a slut, but at least I am not Lucius's blind dog."

The urge to hit her was so urgent and pressing that he could feel fire on the palms of his hands, begging to hurt her, touch her. He didn't, because he knew that even if her words harmed him more than what he could physically give her, he would regret it. And so, the next rational way to hurt her in a disguised form was to encase her jaw into one of his hands, finally stabbing her skin with his bare nails and crush his lips against hers.

Was it a kiss? The word was too sweet and innocent to describe it. His lips touched her, or hit hers, or burnt hers. His mouth moved on top, as it ought to be. She gasped or invited him in and so his tongue travelled inside, invading as a king would to its enemy's land.

In the back of his minds he took notice that Granger was responding, but it was of no matter. She was the object of his socially accepted destruction. He was the one biting and imposing over someone else's body. He was the one dominating and conquering. She could only accept or wait for him to finish.

In the rush of passion, he didn't know when his hands had moved to her hair, which he tugged back to impede her of autonomous movement. She couldn't kiss him now, only wait the microseconds for the arrival of his lips and welcome their return.

Only when a little, almost inaudible moan left her mouth he moved away. Malfoy stared down at her, beneath, inviting and waiting. Her cheeks the color of desire. Now she did swallow. In fear? In passion? Or intending to swallow herself and disappear?

In her blush laid the evidence of her arousal. He imagined making a comment of her wetness and hotness, but didn't. He imagined himself maybe smiling at her if he wasn't so bloody angry still. Draco mentally cursed her for spoiling the one time his fantasies took flesh. The point was clear, however. _See_?

There was no word exchanged. Once she looked down, avoiding his eyes, he left with his pants tighter than when he had arrived.

For a so-called-feminist she liked aggression just fine.


End file.
